The IACHR is a permanent body, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., United States, and it meets in regular and special sessions several times a year to examine allegations of human rights violations in the hemisphere.

The IACHR was created in 1959. It held its first meeting in 1960, and it conducted its first on-site visit to inspect the human rights situation in an OAS member state (the Dominican Republic) in 1961.

A major step in the development of the system was taken in 1965, when the Commission was expressly authorized to examine specific cases of human rights violations. Since that date the IACHR has received thousands of petitions and has processed in excess of 12,000 individual cases.

In 1969, the guiding principles behind the American Declaration were taken, reshaped, and restated in the American Convention on Human Rights. The Convention defines the human rights that the states parties are required to respect and guarantee, and it also ordered the establishment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It is currently binding on 24 of the OAS's 35 member states.

Functions of the Inter-American Commission

The main task of the IACHR is to promote the observance and defense of human rights in the Americas.

In pursuit of this mandate it:

Receives, analyzes, and investigates individual petitions alleging violations of specific human rights protected by the American Convention on Human Rights.

Works to resolve petitions in a collaborative way that is amiable to both parties.

Monitors the general human rights situation in the OAS's member states and, when necessary, prepares and publishes country-specific human rights reports.

Rapporteuship on the Rights of Afro-Descendants and against Racial Discrimination (no Website)

Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression It is the only Special Rapporteurship of the IACHR, meaning that it has a Rapporteur dedicated full-time to the job. The other Rapporteurships are in the hands of the Commissioners, who have other functions at the IACHR and also their own jobs in their home-countries, since their work as Commissioners is unpaid.

Petitions

Petitions may be filed by states, NGOs or individuals. Unlike most court filings, petitions are confidential documents and are not made public. Petitions must meet three requirements; domestic remedies must have already been tried and failed (exhaustion), petitions must be filed with in six months of the last action taken in a domestic system (timeliness), petitions can not be before another court (duplication of procedure).

Once a petition has been filed, it follows the following procedure:

Petition is forwarded to the Secretariat and reviewed for completeness; if complete, it is registered and is given a case number. This is where the state is notified of the petition.

Petition reviewed for admissibility.

The Commission tries to find a friendly settlement.

If no settlement is found, then briefs are filed by each side on the merits of the case.

The Commission then files a report on the merits, known as an Article 50 report from relevant article of the Convention. This is a basically a ruling by the Commission with recommendations on how to solve the conflict. The Article 50 report is sent to the state. This is a confidential report; the petitioner does not get a full copy of this report.

The state is given two months to comply with the recommendations of the report.

The petitioner then has one month to file a petition asking for the issue to be sent to the Inter-American Court (only applicable if the State in question has recognized the competence of the Inter-American Court).

The Commission has three months, from the date the Article 50 report is given to the state, to make either publish the Article 50 report or to send the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Alternatively, the Commission can also choose to monitor the situation. The American Convention establishes that if the report is not submitted to the Court within three months it may not be submitted in the future, but if the State asks for more time in order to comply with the recommendations of the Article 50 report, the Commission might grant it on the condition that the State signs a waiver on this requirement.

Composition of the Inter-American Commission

The IACHR's ranking officers are its seven commissioners. The commissioners are elected by the OAS General Assembly, for four-year terms, with the possibility of reelection on one occasion, for a maximum period in office of eight years. They serve in a personal capacity and are not considered to represent their countries of origin but rather "all the member countries of the Organization" (Art. 35 of the Convention). The Convention (Art. 34) says that they must "be persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights". No two nationals of the same member state may be commissioners simultaneously (Art. 37), and commissioners are required to refrain from participating in the discussion of cases involving their home countries.